


don't spin me a lie

by SyverneSien



Category: Epic SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Friendships, Dreams and Nightmares, Epic SMP, EpicSMP, Gen, Minecraft, Non-Graphic Violence, Random & Short, SMPLive - Freeform, Temporary Character Death, The Void, Two Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29207712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyverneSien/pseuds/SyverneSien
Summary: Epic SMP has a void problem.Jordan knows the void well.---As they leave the spruces, Jordan is suddenly reminded of the pit he’d seen earlier.“Swagger,” he starts nonchalantly, “do you know anything about the big hole in the forest?”Swagger shrugs. “It’s the void,” he answers vaguely. “Not much to it other than that.”They don’t speak again until they reach Bungerburg.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

He’s just parted ways with Ross when he finds it. He’s looking for a place to build his house and he’s expecting a nice, calm place where he can relax. This world is so different from the Realm of Mianite, without gods or any sort of life-threatening quest to embark on, just friends he remembers from the realm between Ruxomar and the Isles. And it’s nice--though he misses Tom and Karl, of course, it’s nice to see some of these people again.

Jordan can hear the void before he sees it--quiet, deep whispers in a language he doesn’t know resonating through the spruces and makes him trip over his own feet, curiosity driving him one way and fear driving him the other. He stumbles to the edge of the gaping chasm and looks down, becoming dizzy when he sees the long drop and the pure white void waiting at the bottom. He takes a step back, trips on a rock, and lands heavily on his back, before scrambling to get up and run away.

As Jordan escapes from the forest, something tugs at the back of his mind, but he ignores it. He knows not to trust the void. It’s not the same void, not in any regard, but he’s not going to fuss over semantics. It’s not good, and he intends to live as far away from it as he can.

He doesn’t get very far before he finds a village, and though it’s in the same forest as the void, the draw of living there is too much, and he’s too tired to go much further. So Jordan stops and busies himself building a home, trying to put the void out of his mind while he saves the villagers. 

When he’s settled down in the village, he lets himself think about the void again.

_ There are footsteps above Jordan’s head, and he looks up with confusion. “Come and join the void, Jordan!” Ted hollers, storming down the stairs into his basement. “The void calls to you! Do you hear it?” _

_ Jordan laughs because he’s sure this is one of Ted’s jokes. “The void?” he repeats, tossing a few strings into a barrel and turning to look at Ted and his posse, all dressed in black robes that look as if they’d been bought at a Halloween store. Pokay’s there, and Svyoshi, and Burren and Michael, whom Jordan looks to for reassurance. Michael gives him a thumbs-up. _

_ “The vo-oid,” Ted coos, drawing out the word until it doesn’t sound like a word anymore. “Everybody will succumb to the void at some point. Better to go willingly and benefit.” He leans forward, because his head brushes the ceiling of Jordan’s basement when he’s standing straight up, and Jordan feels like he’s being intimidated, though Ted’s grin says otherwise. “What do you say, Jordan?” _

_ He thinks to himself for a moment, whilst the other people in his basement start chanting some nonsense about the void, then shuffles sideways towards the barrel where he keeps his ender pearls. “Sure, I’ll come to see the void,” Jordan says, slipping his hand into the barrel and retrieving an ender pearl. Ted and his group don’t seem to notice. He knows how popular the void’s been getting, and he doesn’t really think it’s his cup of tea, even if he’s sure it’s all a big joke--but he’ll at least give it a shot. Jordan pockets the ender pearl. _

_ They take him to a tower at spawn, where a rickety staircase that looks as if it’s made of bones leads down to bedrock. He follows Ted, conscious of how Michael and Burren are following behind him and stopping him from going back, and hesitates when Ted stops next to a small pit in the ground, just large enough for a person to fall through. There’s a black banner next to it, and when Jordan leans forward he can see an empty black abyss that must be the void. _

So it’s real, _ Jordan thinks. “What do I have to do?” he asks, taking a step back from the hole. _

_ “Well, first you have to scream ‘the void’ as loud as you can, and then you jump in,” Ted tells him, coming around to stand next to him. Jordan closes his hand around the pearl in his pocket. “Go on. I haven’t got all day.” _

_ Jordan puts his head back and yells, “The void!” and it must have been sufficient, because the others around him start to cheer and clap. And he hesitates, standing on the edge, and starts to lean forward, trying to plan out his next move. _

_ Then Ted shoves him from behind and suddenly he’s falling, and he feels the bone-chilling grasp of the void start to close around him as he plummets, but he grabs the pearl out of his pocket and throws it. Jordan begins to black out, the whispers of the void, his name among them, growing louder around him, but then he lurches forward and lands, wild-eyed, on the edge of the pit again, surrounded by stunned cultists. _

_ Before any of them can start to stop him, Jordan flees, sprinting back up the bone stairs. “Hey! No! Go back!” Michael shouts, charging after him, and Jordan lets out a laugh, surprising even himself. “Jordan!” _

_ He hears a terrible boom and realizes that one of the others must have sacrificed themselves to the void instead. Jordan reaches the top and too late sees that it was Ted, who had respawned in front of him. “You cannot escape the void,” Ted growls. “You  _ will _ join the void!” And Ted knocks him off the stairs, and Jordan is helpless because he used the one ender pearl he’d brought. _

_ Jordan hits the ground hard next to the void pit and pain shoots up his back, before he disappears and promptly wakes up, unharmed, in his bed back home. He can hear the furious shouts of the void cultists over his communicator and chuckles to himself, before switching onto another frequency and sitting back against the headboard. _

It’s all a gag, isn’t it? This stuff happens all the time on SMPLive. The void isn’t really sentient,  _ he thinks. But he can’t shake the memory of the void whispering his name from his mind. _

There’s a heavy knock on his door and he just about falls out of his chair, before getting up and steadying himself against the wall. “Who’s there?” Jordan calls, going to the door and trying to per out through the cracks.  _ So I’m uneasy. Sue me. _

“SwaggerSouls!” comes the booming voice from the other side. “Heard you were needing some help with the Create tech!” Jordan pulls open the door and is greeted by the sight of a man about his height clad in netherite armour and a medieval knight’s helmet, with a crown atop his head and… a rat on his shoulder? “I thought I’d take you to my place and show you some things.”

“Sure.” Jordan steps out and shuts the door behind him, feeling a bit under-prepared in his iron armour next to Swagger’s netherite. “What’s with the rat?”

“Oh, he’s my pet,” Swagger explains, petting the rat’s grey head, and Jordan notices that it has wings. “I’ve been breeding ‘em since I got here. Between them and the Create stuff, I’ve been working around the clock.” He laughs, as if it’s a joke. “Come on, I’ll show you to Bungerburg. Could get you your own rat there if you want one.”

“They’re cute,” Jordan comments, following Swagger along the dirt path. “What’s that?” He points to a wood-and-metal contraption in Swagger’s hand.

“It’s my extendo-grip!” Swagger exclaims, lifting it up. “It lets me reach shit that’s far away. Really useful.” To demonstrate, he reaches ahead and grabs some of the leaves from a spruce. “See?”

Jordan hums. “I need one of those,” he says.

“I can make you one,” Swagger offers. “I don’t mind. Anything for a hero like yourself.” There’s a twitch of reverence in his voice, and Jordan realizes that this is yet another person who’s heard the stories of his exploits since their youth. “Anyway!” Swagger coughs and hurries ahead. “Bungerburg’s not far on the water. Get in the boat, Cap.” He nudges a small boat that he must’ve came in with his foot.

Jordan hops in and Swagger climbs in behind. Swagger seems content to do the paddling, so Jordan lets him--Jordan’s more interested in looking around at the scenery. As they leave the spruces, Jordan is suddenly reminded of the pit he’d seen earlier.

“Swagger,” he starts nonchalantly, “do you know anything about the big hole in the forest?”

Swagger shrugs. “It’s the void,” he answers vaguely. “Not much to it other than that.”

They don’t speak again until they reach Bungerburg.

* * *

Jordan’s fallen through the void before, but always with the protection of a deity. Always with that sense of an otherworldly, magical, godly aura surrounding him and keeping the freezing hands of the void at bay. It still was never  _ pleasant, _ but at least he was warm and comforted as the everlasting night attempted to eat his soul and was pushed back. Those few moments when he’d fallen into the void  _ without _ godly help, though?

He’s always falling through it in his dreams. Always falling, never slowing, never stopping. His eyes are half-closed and bleary, though there’s not much to see anyway-- just an endless sea of darkness on all sides. The longer he falls, the colder it gets, and the louder the void becomes. It starts by whispering his name, then raising its voice, until he swears he can hear it actually speaking to him before he wakes up. He never remembers what it says, though.

There are no gods in his dreams, and so the hungry void eats him alive.

Sometimes Jordan can feel the void digging around in his mind, rustling through memories and bringing them to the forefront of his brain, sorting through thoughts and ideas and plans with meticulous fervour; sometimes going so deep that Jordan isn’t sure if the void’s whispers are from inside his mind or out. He loses himself, then. He’s consumed by the void, and is given a few moments of terrifying calm before he wakes up, when he can no longer move nor speak nor even form the smallest hint of a thought. He’s glad it never persists after he wakes.

His first night on Epic SMP is one of those nights. The nights when his mind falls prey to the void, when the void forces him to relive experiences he’d rather remember from afar. He crawls into bed after getting back from Bungerburg, his mind abuzz with information and ideas, and a promise to go back soon to learn more tucked away between auto-crafters and conveyor belts. Jordan’s managed to forget, somehow, about the terrible pit that awaits him when he dreams, and so doesn’t think twice about falling asleep early.

It’s two o’clock in the morning when he hits the floor of his cabin, groaning and pushing himself up on his elbows. It’s not the most abrupt end to a dream he’s ever had, but it was an ironic one, considering he was dreaming of falling. Though he always dreams about falling these days.

Jordan wanders out into the forest, deliberately giving the void a wide berth, and he suffers a few injuries from monsters but otherwise makes it to the mountains unharmed. It’s there, as he’s climbing up the rocks, looking for who-knows-what, that he finds a sign stuck into the ground.  _ The Palcove at Mt Cool. _ And when he looks up, he sees a huge cavern carved into the side of the cliff in front of him, and he wonders how he didn’t notice it earlier.

“This must be the… Palcove,” he says to himself. He doesn’t recognize the dark brown material making up the entrance, so he takes a few more steps and runs his fingers along the grooves. His communicator (though it does much more than just communicate) tells him that it’s called scoria.

“Hey, Jordan,” comes a familiar voice from behind him, and Jordan just about jumps out of his skin. “What are you doing here so late?” Ted puts a hand on his hip and cocks his head quizzically, watching Jordan as he turns around and tries to collect himself.

“What are  _ you _ doing here so late?” Jordan counters, tripping over his words as he tries to appear less unsettled.

Ted pulls on a tight expression. “I  _ live _ here.”

Jordan leans back against the scoria, then thinks better of it and tries to stand in an ordinary position. “Er- this is your… Palcove, then?” he asks. “I was just… looking around. I couldn’t sleep. We’re sort of neighbours--I live over there on the other side of the…” he fumbles for the word as he points, as he does not want to call it the void in front of Ted, “...big hole.”

“It’s my and Charlie’s place,” Ted explains. “We called it the Palcove because we’re pals and it’s an alcove.” He pauses and looks over his shoulder to where Jordan had been gesturing. “You mean the void?”

When Ted meets Jordan’s eyes, Jordan knows that he and Ted are both thinking of the same incident.

“I’m not very fond of  _ voids,” _ Jordan says, and it’s all he  _ has _ to say, because Ted jumps forward to reassure him.

“I’m not like that anymore!” Ted insists. “No more sacrificing. I swear. I was actually just going over there to get rid of that damn thing.” He lifts an eyebrow. “Want to help?”

Jordan catches a stack of dirt that Ted throws him and replies, “Absolutely.” It’d be nice to make it so that he didn’t have to worry about the void on this server anymore. “Lead the way.”

Ted starts down the hillside and into the spruces, with Jordan following closely behind. The hole’s not far, and he can feel it tugging at him after a few moments. The hum grows louder, the trees thin, and soon he’s standing with Ted at the edge.

“Well, let’s get started,” Jordan says, reaching out to place the first dirt block, but Ted is just staring into the white abyss. “Ted?”

“I… I want to jump in,” Ted murmurs. “This one’s different. I’ll just respawn, I’ll be fine, I just want to- I want to  _ know.” _ His eyes are fixed on the pure nothingness, and Jordan attempts to wave a hand in front of his face to break his stare. It doesn’t work.

“It’s exactly the same,” Jordan tells him, though he knows what Ted is talking about. It’s different, but still sinister. “Let’s cover it up, Ted, and then you don’t have to worry about being tempted anymore.”

“Just once,” Ted protests. “I want to jump in just once. It’s been so long, I used to… this used to be… it was so…” Ted’s fumbling for words and Jordan’s brow scrunches in concern.

Jordan grabs Ted, scared that he’ll push past Jordan and leap. “Don’t,” Jordan orders sternly. “Don’t do it, Ted.”

“Let go of me!” And one shove is all it takes, unbalancing the both of them and causing them to plummet into the void.

* * *

Jordan wakes up in a cave, alone. His tools are gone, his head is pounding, and Ted is nowhere to be seen. The stones are wet and slimy with a sort of black goo he doesn’t recognize, and his feet squelch in it as he stands up. Vines hang down from the ceiling, bumping into his head as he walks, and the only source of light is a singular lit lantern that he picks up and brings with him. He opens his mouth to call out, but finds his throat dry, and the words are trapped.

He reaches out one hand to place on the cave wall, worrying that this might be a maze. Though it seems like just a single corridor, naturally-made and sloping downwards to some sort of endpoint that he couldn’t see. It’s deathly quiet, with the thumping of his heart like a bass drum in his ears, but he feels that he is not alone.

The end of the cave drops off into a large pit and Jordan knows what to expect as he leans over the edge--an ocean black as ink and as vast as the universe itself; the void that he’s familiar with. Wind blows up from it, gently singing as it batters his face, and slowly he hears it start to call.

  
_ Jordan, _ whispers the void.  _ Jordan. _ And Jordan has nowhere else to go, no other option… so he steps up onto the edge, closes his eyes, and falls into the icy clutch of the void.


	2. Epilogue

“SwaggerSouls,” says Jordan from directly behind the man, and Swagger flinches and curses loudly.

“Fuckin’ hell, man,” Swagger exclaims, dropping the mechanism he’s working on and turning to look at Jordan. He’s looking worse for wear, certainly, with his hair grown slightly longer and messed up, and his red coat spotted with mud and tears, and his white shirt stained, and- was that  _ blood _ on his face? “Where have you been?” Jordan’s been, well, not quite  _ missing, _ but Swagger hadn’t seen him in days and was starting to get worried.

“Oh, here and there,” Jordan answers nonchalantly, and Swagger frowns. “Listen, friend,” and that doesn’t sound like Jordan at  _ all, _ even just from Swagger’s knowledge of the man, which admittedly is not much, “I need a favour.”

Swagger raises an eyebrow, though he knows Jordan can’t see it. “What kind of favour?” he asks. “Have you lost your fuckin’ extendo-grip already?”

Jordan shakes his head. “No, no, it’s right here.” To punctuate his words, Jordan pulls the extendo-grip out of his inventory and shows it to Swagger. “Take a walk with me, SwaggerSouls.” It’s not a request.

Swagger follows Jordan out of Bungerburg, and they walk along the bank of the river. The more time Swagger spends with Jordan, the stranger Jordan looks. “Where are we going?” Swagger asks. He knows most of the server already, so he knows what’s in the direction they’re heading.

“I need a favour,” Jordan repeats simply, and with a jerk of his head Swagger realizes that Jordan doesn’t even seem  _ human _ anymore. More like… a mob wearing a player’s skin. But that’s impossible.

“Tell me what you want with me,” Swagger growls, but Jordan doesn’t slow and he’s forced to follow. He wants to insist, but at the same time, he’s curious to see where Jordan takes him. They’ve already passed Jordan’s base, so what…

And then they reach the void, where Jordan stops and turns to him. “You don’t know about the void,” he says plainly, which confuses the other man.

“It’s just a fuckin’ hole, man, what the hell are you on about?” Swagger injects before Jordan can go on. He’s annoyed now. He could be working. “Did somebody put you up to this? Is this a fuckin’ prank?”

Jordan looks at him quizzically. “No prank. Just the void.”

“What’s the favour?” Swagger asks, edging back towards the spruces. Jordan’s starting to scare him, and he’d rather get out of there as fast as he can than stay any longer.

“I need your head.”

“My  _ head?” _ The last word comes out as almost a squeak. “You brought me over here to  _ kill me?” _ That’s the last thing he’d expect from Captain-fucking-Sparklez.

Jordan shrugs. “That  _ is _ how one acquires heads.”

“Jesus Christ.” Swagger tugs his sword from his inventory and lifts it, preparing to defend himself, but things happen too fast. There’s the telltale sound of an ender pearl, Jordan vanishes from in front of him, and a sword stabs through his gut, right beneath his chestplate. “Shit,” he says loudly.

“Don’t worry,” Jordan says quietly. “It’s going to a good cause.” Then he pulls the sword out and Swagger wakes up back home, dripping in cold sweat.

* * *

Jordan puts Swagger’s head up amongst the vines hanging down into the void, and smiles as the edges of the pit start to drop away. The void will consume the server… and he and Ted will help it along the way.

**Author's Note:**

> Woo! New hyperfixation, bay-be! I love Epic SMP and this concept sort of came out of nowhere when I connected the SMPLive void to the Epic SMP void. I dunno where this went, it was fun though! Thanks for reading, perhaps I will expand on this more later, or maybe I'll take another shot at it from a different angle.


End file.
